A note on Develop has further indications that Battlefield 3 will not be released through Steam, as speculation mounts that DICE's military shooter sequel will not appear on Valve's download service. They quote a comment from a report from financial research firm Baird based on a meeting with GameStop: "The upcoming EA title Battlefield 3 will be sold as a download through GameStop, but not through Steam," Baird says GameStop executives told them. "Given Steam's dominance – and insistence on users downloading a Steam client application – publishers are likely to be receptive to a competitive alternative." Thanks Computer and Video Games.

Bhruic wrote on Jul 18, 2011, 16:14:Weird. I want BF3 to be on Steam. But I understand that that's for my convenience. Acting as if EA has done something wrong because they haven't made things convenient for you seems quite strange. It's not like you are being forced to use a specific other digital distribution system, you still have numerous choices.

Want to buy L4D2? Well, you're out of luck if you want to use something other than Steam. How about HL2? Same thing. In fact, while it's possible I'm missing one, I can't think of a single modern game from Valve that was released on other digital distribution systems. And EA are the bad ones?

Look, I like Steam. I was a reluctant convert, but it's got a lot of nice features, and as I said, it's convenient. But that doesn't change the fact that Valve (and others) have been shoving it down our throats for years. There are numerous examples of non-Valve games that also forced Steam, even if you bought the retail copy.

So please, stop white-knighting Valve on this one.

So true, I'm glad that there is someone where who can think critically and use their reason.All Valve games... where can I buy them without using Steam? Oh that's right I can't. Here comes EA and there is some SPECULATION that BF3 won't be available on Steam but will be available on all the other download services including their own Origin service. Grab the pitchforks!

The double standard and hypocrisy are ugly ugly things.

Disclaimer: Every game I own except for Witcher 2, I bought from Steam. I wish that BF3 was available on Steam.